Elle Varner on Interracial Dating, Engagement Rumors

Elle Varner is one of the most-talked-about breakout stars of 2012. Her debut album, Perfectly Imperfect, reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200, and she snagged a Grammy nomination for her single “Refill.”

But the singer-songwriter is not just making headlines about her music. After tweeting a picture of herself wearing what looked like an engagement ring, rumors quickly circulated that the 23-year-old is planning a trip down the aisle. 

Varner recently phoned in to Philadelphia’s Power 99 to set the record straight. “I am not engaged,” she told the radio station. She added that the rumors started over a cell phone mishap. 

“I put on my grandma’s ring and the plan was to tweet this picture and be like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe it.’ And then right after say, ‘My nana let me try on her ring’ because she’s so stingy. She never lets me try it on,” she said. 

However, the singer said her idea didn’t go as planned when the message saved in her drafts due to bad service. “I said, Whatever and just went to sleep. And then I woke up, and it had sent but I never sent the follow-up,” she said. “So it was all that time for people to think I was engaged.”

The photo not only encouraged engagement rumors but also created chatter that Varner was in a relationship with a White man, perhaps from visuals in her latest music video “I Don’t Care.” 

“That pissed me off so much. That was such a letdown,” she said. “My grandparents got married interracially during the Civil Rights movement, when people were threatening their lives. They put so much on the line for their bond and stayed married until my grandmother passed — like, 50-something years. And so coming from that and to have people now in 2013 practically like… You’re still talking about that?”